Sunday, March 29, 2009

How to make an apron

First drink a big caramel latte. Then ask the child to pick out a fabric. Take a zillion things downstairs (sewing requires lots of crap). Put child to bed. Make the apron. (Ha, you thought I'd give you actual directions?) Crow with joy because you got it finished before she woke up. Crow some more because she LOVES it and won't take it off.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Grouse doggies

Ruby is becoming more and more articulate by the day, but sometimes it's a race between her burgeoning verbal skills and the growing complexities of her ideas. She's starting to get the hang of clauses (!I know!) and uses words and phrases like:
"when" (When you bite it, you eat it)
"hardly" (You can hardly see the donuts!)
"because" (Ruby crying because she have tears in her eyes)
"I wonder..." (I wonder if Coco is hiding)

But on the other hand, she'll screw up simple things like:
"Touch his ball eyes" (our poor cat's eyeball)
"It be loud. It able be loud"
"Thirsty about water kefir"
"Careful be!"

Usually, she's the narrator of my life, and keeps me grounded in facts. "That is a door. You open it with a key." I have to agree.

Sometimes it's just all nonsense. "Whoa, there goes doach." Or my favorite so far, "My hat is full of grouse doggies."

Monday, March 16, 2009

The disappearer

Ruby took my cable needle proclaiming that she was going to knit with it. I looked down for about 3 minutes to work in my gorgeous new stitch markers that came in the mail. I looked up and asked where my cable needle went, and they were gone.

She pointed me to the coffee table, then to the couch, then she just started to ask me for it, so she could knit with it again. I asked her "Did you put it in the animal box?" and she answered yes. It was not there. I asked, "Did you drop it in the doll house?" and she said yes again. Two year olds are not to be trusted! I looked under the couches, the bookshelf, the tv, the desk, the changing table (aka the thing that holds the 20 remotes we have in the house), in the dollhouse, the toy bin with small toys, and under all the couch cushions. I cleaned out my knitting bag, my needle bag, my small stuff bag, but no luck. I now have a very organized knitting bag, and a relatively dust free living room (I vacuumed in the process), but no cable needle.

Where could a cable needle go in 3 minutes? Apparently into another dimension.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Overheard

I can't seem to make a coherent post about the various interesting things I've noted about Ruby recently, so I'm just piling them together.

Ruby holding a cat toy in one hand and a plastic egg in the other:

Egg: Would you eat this, cat toy?
Cat toy: Would you get on there, egg?
Egg: Sure cat toy.

Sitting on the toilet trying to poop, I thought she was making a profound statement on the state of our economy:

Ruby: It is hard times.

Ruby often gets self conscious when I look at her playing or singing, so I usually try not to make a big deal of watching her. But the other day she was singing Twinkle Twinkle and she was so damn cute, I was looking at her with a big smile, and she yelled, "Mama don't laugh! I'm not cute, just a big girl!" So I looked away and laughed into my sleeve.

One of her favorite songs these days is a Raffi song about picking a bale of cotton. So several times I hear, "Pick a dale a cop!"

At bedtime, she goes to her "bedcave". And she calls her bedroom "Ruby's living room". She usually likes the dark, but lately, she likes to have the light on so she can play. So as a preemptive move before going upstairs, she always makes sure to vehemently insist (about 20 times in a row-- those of you with 2 year olds know that that's an understatement), "NO TURN THE LIGHT OFF IN RUBY'S LIVING ROOM!"

Good times.

Friday, March 06, 2009

Bad Theatre

Last night I went with a couple friends to see a play at the University called "Night Train to Bolina". It was horrible. I spent the entire first half waiting for the intermission that would just not come. I tried to fall asleep like a couple people I spotted, but that didn't work. The actress was far too shrill. She angrily shouted every single one of her lines to the point of comedy.

"You have a FEVER! I need to you to take you to the HOSPITAL!" She yelled into his face as she held her dying friend tenderly.

Except nobody was laughing because we were all so embarrassed for her. The other actor was actually rather charming-- if he was supposed to be mentally disabled.

We fled at intermission and happened to come across another U show that was happening at the Xperimental theatre, and thought we'd pop in. It had to at least be more hip. Well, two guys were sitting at a table, one of them was eating, and the other was pontificating and telling theatre nerd stories and inside jokes. It showed no signs of getting any more interesting than a pompous guy at a party telling a long and pointless story about his trip overseas. So after rather rudely giggling and whispering loudly in the back row, the three of us left in the middle of the show, clunking our boots loudly on the way out.

At least we bonded over beers at the Triple Rock talking about how we could have possibly spent a collective $45 on the worst night of theatre ever.